Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 6

[DannyGallivan]

I’d really like us to limit the Peter Forsberg talk until he is eligible. If we’re holding back players who weren’t better at their best than someone who was the best player in the world at their best, then we’d be down to only a few remaining players.

And even then, it’s not as if Sakic wasn’t in the conversation. 100-point seasons 17 years apart, two Pearson nominations in close proximity (2001, 2004), the second-most dominant per-game scorer after Jagr from 1998-99 through 2000-01 (per-82: 47 goals, 113 points), the monster 1995-96 when he might have been better than anybody outside of Pennsylvania.

He’s not my #1 this round or anything, but he’s probably top-5ish.

I've always liked Sakic over Forsberg. Makes sense to me that Joe is available this round and Forsberg isn't. However, it will be very interesting if he doesn't get in this round and we have the "potential" of Sakic, Yzerman and Forsberg all available at the same time (add Lindros to the list - which is iffy given the fondness for longevity around here - and you'd have a fun next round of voting).

 

[DannyGallivan]

I think the other factor is competition in the 70s versus the 90s. Sakic competed against the best in the world for basically his entire career, but in Esposito's prime there was a good deal of strong players outside the NHL - a few in the WHA, a few Soviets, a few Czechs - and none of them are actually better than him, but every season one or two of them could have given him a run for his money if you imagine they were all together in one league. On the other hand, you can say it doesn't affect Espo's best 7 seasons because you could say none of those players would ever threaten for a top-3 scoring finish and you wouldn't be crazy for thinking that.

The European depth wasn't anywhere near what it was in Sakic's day or certainly today. Meanwhile, Espo's best season was one season before the WHA even started, and there were a lot fewer teams in Esposito's halcyon days, therefore the concentration of talent wasn't that different than in Sakic's day.

 

[DannyGallivan]

This week has been murder. Just want to say that if Espo doesn't go this round I will be sad. And you don't want to make the Macho Man sad.

 

[VanIslander]

I've always liked Sakic over Forsberg.

1. I've appreciated more the puck protection, puck possession style and puck recovery physical hounddog style of Petr.
2. As a Canucks fan I am required to complain about Forsberg (it's in our constitution - ask a longterm Canucks fan if you don't understand).
3. I loved Burnaby Joe early in his career in Quebec because I was born in Burnaby, am the same age as him, grew up on the same street and honestly believe (with about 70 percent certainty if pressed) that he was that kid from my kindergarten class who didn't speak English and had a weird smile (thanks to his Croat parents). He took my dark blue crayon!

 

[bobholly39]

I've always liked Sakic over Forsberg. Makes sense to me that Joe is available this round and Forsberg isn't. However, it will be very interesting if he doesn't get in this round and we have the "potential" of Sakic, Yzerman and Forsberg all available at the same time (add Lindros to the list - which is iffy given the fondness for longevity around here - and you'd have a fun next round of voting).

I could see all 4 players being inducted in separate rounds while none of the other is eligible against one another. All great players and fun to compare bc they played in same era and are relatively close overall as players (Lindros being more peak) - but with only 10 players per round and all 100+ years of hockey to take into account - i don't think any of the 4 are on the same tier.

 

[bobholly39]

This week has been murder. Just want to say that if Espo doesn't go this round I will be sad. And you don't want to make the Macho Man sad.

Yeah I honestly don't get it. I get that there's a feeling by some that scoring isn't everything, and that playoffs matter a lot (not that Espo is bad here, he's pretty solid imo), and I get that Orr helped him (but he helped Orr a ton too - this is given way too much importance imo) - but at some point 5 scoring championships, and breaking all of the offensive records (by a lot) has to matter more than the competition he's up against.

He was at the top of the league, very significantly so - for many years. Who else in this round can say that? Most others have maybe 1-2 years of greatness with some solid longevity, playoffs, etc...but no one has his dominant stretch.

He's my #1 in this round. I love someone like Joe Sakic - but Espo is simply a tier above to me.

No one voted into this project so far has come CLOSE to being impacted as greatly as Espo has in voting because he was helped by team/teammate. The 50s Canadiens may be nowhere near this list if they didn't have each other and great teams. Why is it such a big deal that Orr and Espo brought the best out of each other? It should be a positive, not this huge negative.

 

[DannyGallivan]

He's my #1 in this round. I love someone like Joe Sakic - but Espo is simply a tier above to me.

I'm voting today (no wifi on weekends with me). Espo is also my number one this round. I had him going in the previous round, but I was in the minority then.

 

[MXD]

My current ballot is exactly like my Round 1 order at this point, so I'll wait a bit, because that's really boring.
I'm ready to admit that I MIGHT have overrated Clarke and MIGHT have underrated Fetisov though.

(FYI, the best player in this current group is ranked 17th. The worse is 47th)

I really, really want to like Esposito at this point, but I just can't see him clear the "Clarke" hurdle.

 

[ImporterExporter]

To many C's bunched closely together. Most are going to be left out unfortunately.

Hall, Brodeur, Makarov, Fetisov are my top 4.

Bossy is NR.

 

[DannyGallivan]

To many C's bunched closely together. Most are going to be left out unfortunately.

Hall, Brodeur, Makarov, Fetisov are my top 4.

Bossy is NR.

Agreed. But for me, that means others likely won't make my top five. I have a lot of centres... and Mr. Goalie. Actually, I'm still fiddlin' with my number five pick (right now, it's Hall... could change).

 

[seventieslord]

The European depth wasn't anywhere near what it was in Sakic's day or certainly today

No, but there were very good European players. This isn't like me saying "dur, Gordie Howe didn't have to compete against Europeans..."

 

[Batis]

While the Soviet League of the 80's obviously was far more unbalanced than the NHL was at that time my impression is that the extent of that unbalanced situation have been at least somewhat exaggerated over the last couple of pages. Especially when it comes to the early/mid 80's. Yes most of the top end talent belonged to the Moscow teams and CSKA Moscow in particular was obviously a stacked team and often won the league title easily (most notably in 83/84) but some years like in 81/82 and 84/85 they were seriously challenged by Spartak (in 81/82) and Dynamo (in 84/85) all the way to the finish line. And those early 80's Spartak teams had some serious firepower up front with forwards like Shalimov, Kapustin, Shepelev, Kozhevnikov and Tyumenev. In 81/82 Spartak actually had more players in the top 10 in scoring than CSKA did and in 82/83 they had as many as CSKA. Looking at the number of players in the top 10 in scoring by team every season of the 80's gives us this result.

79/80
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Spartak Moscow: 2 players
Torpedo Gorky: 2 players
Dynamo Moscow: 2 players

80/81
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Spartak Moscow: 3 players
Traktor Chelyabinsk: 1 player
Dinamo Riga: 1 player
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

81/82
Spartak Moscow: 5 players
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Dinamo Riga: 1 player

82/83
Spartak Moscow: 3 players
CSKA Moscow: 3 players
Dinamo Riga: 2 players
Torpedo Gorky: 1 player
SKA Leningrad: 1 player

83/84
CSKA Moscow: 5 players
Spartak Moscow: 4 players
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

84/85
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Spartak Moscow: 2 players
Dinamo Riga: 1 player
Dynamo Moscow: 1 player
Izhstal Izhevsk: 1 player
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

85/86
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Dynamo Moscow: 2 players
Spartak Moscow: 1 player
SKA Leningrad: 1 player
Sokol Kiev: 1 player
Krylya Sovetov Moscow: 1 player

86/87
CSKA Moscow: 7 players
Dynamo Moscow: 2 players
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

87/88
CSKA Moscow: 6 players
Traktor Chelyabinsk: 2 players
Krylya Sovetov Moscow: 1 player
Sokol Kiev: 1 player

88/89
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Sokol Kiev: 2 players
Traktor Chelyabinsk: 1 player
Dinamo Riga: 1 player
Krylya Sovetov Moscow: 1 player
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

Based on how the Soviet League of the 80's is being talked about here one would expect that the percentage of CSKA players in the top 10 in scoring would be far higher than it in fact was. The only seasons where it kind of follows those expectations is in 86/87 and 87/88 with 7 and 6 CSKA players in the top 10. It is also worth noting that as soon as CSKA lost the Green Unit Dynamo Moscow won the Soviet League in 89/90 and CSKA fell back to only having 1 player in the top 10 in scoring and that player was Bykov who finished 10th. And speaking about Dynamo Moscow I would say that even if they generally did not have that much firepower up front (compared to CSKA or the early/mid 80's Spartak teams at least) they had very strong and well balanced teams with a strong defence-pairing in Pervukhin-Bilyaletdinov for most of the decade. Add to that Vasiliev (who was first among defencemen in the SPOTY voting the first two years of the 80's) for the first half of the decade and Myshkin in the net. They generally had a pretty strong and well balanced group of forwards as well with the Golikov brothers, Maltsev and Prirodin early on and Svetlov, Yashin and Semenov for most of the decade. Also joined by Zubrilchev and Leonov for the second half of the decade and Semak during the final years. Anyone who doubts the quality of those Dynamo teams should check out this thread about the performance of Dynamo Moscows top line during the 85/86 Super Series. The Varnakov-Yashin-Svetlov line's brilliant performance during Super Series 85/86. And yes they had one reinforcement player in Varnakov during that series but he was only brought in as a replacement for the missing Semenov so the quality of that Dynamo team was pretty much exactly on the same level as what they generally was on in the Soviet League.

Additionally I would say that even if most of the talent was on the Moscow teams the fact is still that the league had every single player from the co-best national team in the world. So the competition for the top spots in the scoring race was most certainly very high.

 

[DannyGallivan]

While the Soviet League of the 80's obviously was far more unbalanced than the NHL was at that time I think that the extent of that unbalanced situation have been at least somewhat exaggerated over the last couple of pages. Especially when it comes to the early/mid 80's. Yes most of the top end talent belonged to the Moscow teams and CSKA Moscow in particular was obviously a stacked team and often won the league title easily (most notably in 83/84) but some years like in 81/82 and 84/85 they were seriously challenged by Spartak (in 81/82) and Dynamo (in 84/85) all the way to the finish line. And those early 80's Spartak teams had some serious firepower up front with forwards like Shalimov, Kapustin, Shepelev, Kozhevnikov and Tyumenev. In 81/82 Spartak actually had more players in the top 10 in scoring than CSKA did and in 82/83 they had as many as CSKA. Looking at the number of players in the top 10 in scoring by team every season of the 80's gives us this result.

79/80
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Spartak Moscow: 2 players
Torpedo Gorky: 2 players
Dynamo Moscow: 2 players

80/81
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Spartak Moscow: 3 players
Traktor Chelyabinsk: 1 player
Dinamo Riga: 1 player
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

81/82
Spartak Moscow: 5 players
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Dinamo Riga: 1 player

82/83
Spartak Moscow: 3 players
CSKA Moscow: 3 players
Dinamo Riga: 2 players
Torpedo Gorky: 1 player
SKA Leningrad: 1 player

83/84
CSKA Moscow: 5 players
Spartak Moscow: 4 players
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

84/85
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Spartak Moscow: 2 players
Dinamo Riga: 1 player
Dynamo Moscow: 1 player
Izhstal Izhevsk: 1 player
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

85/86
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Dynamo Moscow: 2 players
Spartak Moscow: 1 player
SKA Leningrad: 1 player
Sokol Kiev: 1 player
Krylya Sovetov Moscow: 1 player

86/87
CSKA Moscow: 7 players
Dynamo Moscow: 2 players
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

87/88
CSKA Moscow: 6 players
Traktor Chelyabinsk: 2 players
Krylya Sovetov Moscow: 1 player
Sokol Kiev: 1 player

88/89
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Sokol Kiev: 2 players
Traktor Chelyabinsk: 1 player
Dinamo Riga: 1 player
Krylya Sovetov Moscow: 1 player
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

Based on how the Soviet League of the 80's is being talked about here one would expect that the percentage of CSKA players in the top 10 in scoring would be far higher than it in fact was. The only seasons where it kind of follows those expectations is in 86/87 and 87/88 with 7 and 6 CSKA players in the top 10. It is also worth noting that as soon as CSKA lost the Green Unit Dynamo Moscow won the Soviet League in 89/90 and CSKA fell back to only having 1 player in the top 10 in scoring and that player was Bykov who finished 10th. And speaking about Dynamo Moscow I would say that even if they generally did not have that much firepower up front (compared to CSKA or the early/mid 80's Spartak teams at least) they generally had very strong and well balanced teams with a strong defence-pairing in Pervukhin-Bilyaletdinov for most of the decade. Add to that Vasiliev (who was first among defencemen in the SPOTY voting the first two years of the 80's) for the first half of the decade. They generally had a pretty strong and well balanced group of forwards as well with the Golikov brothers, Maltsev and Prirodin early on and Svetlov, Yashin and Semenov for most of the decade. Also joined by Zubrilchev and Leonov for the second half of the decade and Semak during the final years. Anyone who doubts the quality of those Dynamo teams should check out this thread about the performance of Dynamo Moscows top line during the 85/86 Super Series. The Varnakov-Yashin-Svetlov line's brilliant performance during Super Series 85/86. And yes they had one reinforcement player in Varnakov during that series but he was only brought in as a replacement for the missing Semenov so the quality of that Dynamo team was pretty much exactly on the same level as what they generally was on in the Soviet League.

Any idea how the goals per game looked in the old Soviet league? The impression I get is that is was like the QMJHL... a goaltender's nightmare with little defense.

 

[Canadiens1958]

While the Soviet League of the 80's obviously was far more unbalanced than the NHL was at that time I think that the extent of that unbalanced situation have been at least somewhat exaggerated over the last couple of pages. Especially when it comes to the early/mid 80's. Yes most of the top end talent belonged to the Moscow teams and CSKA Moscow in particular was obviously a stacked team and often won the league title easily (most notably in 83/84) but some years like in 81/82 and 84/85 they were seriously challenged by Spartak (in 81/82) and Dynamo (in 84/85) all the way to the finish line. And those early 80's Spartak teams had some serious firepower up front with forwards like Shalimov, Kapustin, Shepelev, Kozhevnikov and Tyumenev. In 81/82 Spartak actually had more players in the top 10 in scoring than CSKA did and in 82/83 they had as many as CSKA. Looking at the number of players in the top 10 in scoring by team every season of the 80's gives us this result.

79/80
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Spartak Moscow: 2 players
Torpedo Gorky: 2 players
Dynamo Moscow: 2 players

80/81
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Spartak Moscow: 3 players
Traktor Chelyabinsk: 1 player
Dinamo Riga: 1 player
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

81/82
Spartak Moscow: 5 players
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Dinamo Riga: 1 player

82/83
Spartak Moscow: 3 players
CSKA Moscow: 3 players
Dinamo Riga: 2 players
Torpedo Gorky: 1 player
SKA Leningrad: 1 player

83/84
CSKA Moscow: 5 players
Spartak Moscow: 4 players
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

84/85
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Spartak Moscow: 2 players
Dinamo Riga: 1 player
Dynamo Moscow: 1 player
Izhstal Izhevsk: 1 player
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

85/86
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Dynamo Moscow: 2 players
Spartak Moscow: 1 player
SKA Leningrad: 1 player
Sokol Kiev: 1 player
Krylya Sovetov Moscow: 1 player

86/87
CSKA Moscow: 7 players
Dynamo Moscow: 2 players
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

87/88
CSKA Moscow: 6 players
Traktor Chelyabinsk: 2 players
Krylya Sovetov Moscow: 1 player
Sokol Kiev: 1 player

88/89
CSKA Moscow: 4 players
Sokol Kiev: 2 players
Traktor Chelyabinsk: 1 player
Dinamo Riga: 1 player
Krylya Sovetov Moscow: 1 player
Khimik Voskresensk: 1 player

Based on how the Soviet League of the 80's is being talked about here one would expect that the percentage of CSKA players in the top 10 in scoring would be far higher than it in fact was. The only seasons where it kind of follows those expectations is in 86/87 and 87/88 with 7 and 6 CSKA players in the top 10. It is also worth noting that as soon as CSKA lost the Green Unit Dynamo Moscow won the Soviet League in 89/90 and CSKA fell back to only having 1 player in the top 10 in scoring and that player was Bykov who finished 10th. And speaking about Dynamo Moscow I would say that even if they generally did not have that much firepower up front (compared to CSKA or the early/mid 80's Spartak teams at least) they generally had very strong and well balanced teams with a strong defence-pairing in Pervukhin-Bilyaletdinov for most of the decade. Add to that Vasiliev (who was first among defencemen in the SPOTY voting the first two years of the 80's) for the first half of the decade. They generally had a pretty strong and well balanced group of forwards as well with the Golikov brothers, Maltsev and Prirodin early on and Svetlov, Yashin and Semenov for most of the decade. Also joined by Zubrilchev and Leonov for the second half of the decade and Semak during the final years. Anyone who doubts the quality of those Dynamo teams should check out this thread about the performance of Dynamo Moscows top line during the 85/86 Super Series. The Varnakov-Yashin-Svetlov line's brilliant performance during Super Series 85/86. And yes they had one reinforcement player in Varnakov during that series but he was only brought in as a replacement for the missing Semenov so the quality of that Dynamo team was pretty much exactly on the same level as what they generally was on in the Soviet League.

Let's see the top five teams for GF each season during the the 1980s.

Individual top 10 scoring reflects usually reflects deployment and time on ice.

 

[Batis]

Let's see the top five teams for GF each season during the the 1980s.

Individual top 10 scoring reflects usually reflects deployment and time on ice.

I don't have time to present that right now as I am going out to eat. But it is not very hard to find so if you want those numbers I suggest you look for them yourself.

Anyway I am not saying that the Soviet League of the 80's was not a very unbalanced league. It most certainly was. I am just saying that it was not quite as unbalanced as it is being talked about here at times. Additionally like I said even if most of the talent was on the Moscow teams the league still had every single player from the co-best national team in the world. And when it comes to competing for the scoring title you don't compete with the average player of the average team. You compete with the very best players and the Soviet League of the 80's most definitely had a very strong collection of top players.

 

[seventieslord]

I don't know, that looks pretty imbalanced to me. 45 of 100 slots occupied by one team, and the other 55 shared by... 11?

So it was nine times more likely that you'd see a cska player in the top 10, than a player from another team, on average.

 

[ImporterExporter]

My impression after reading many, many posts over the years by our European brethren, is that the Soviet domestic leaguse had obvious higher end talent (Soviets did well enough, obviously against Canada through the 70's and 80's) but lacked depth, which was the main difference between them and the NHL. 2nd, 3rd and 4th line type players in the NHL were generally viewed as superior.

Is that a fair, general overview?

 

[Batis]

I don't know, that looks pretty imbalanced to me. 45 of 100 slots occupied by one team, and the other 55 shared by... 11?

So it was nine times more likely that you'd see a cska player in the top 10, than a player from another team, on average.

Sure it was very unbalanced. I am not arguing against that. But the feeling I get when reading some posts around here is that some think that pretty much every single top player in the league played for CSKA Moscow which at least in the early 80's not was true at all with all of Shalimov, Kapustin, Shepelev, Kozhevnikov, Vasiliev, Pervukhin, Maltsev, Balderis etc playing for other teams. Perhaps I only read that into the posts of others but it is the impression I sometimes get. And that idea is what I am arguing against. Especially when it comes to the early/mid 80's. But it was most definitely always a very unbalanced league. A very unbalanced league with many world class players in it.

 

[MXD]

... It seems to me that we should probably focus more on the effect the imbalance had on goalies than the effect it had on skaters, since the league was unbalanced BECAUSE there was world-class skaters.

 

[Batis]

My impression after reading many, many posts over the years by our European brethren, is that the Soviet domestic leaguse had obvious higher end talent (Soviets did well enough, obviously against Canada through the 70's and 80's) but lacked depth, which was the main difference between them and the NHL. 2nd, 3rd and 4th line type players in the NHL were generally viewed as superior.

Is that a fair, general overview?

A very fair general overview I would say.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Isn't wondering why Sakic should rank over Forsberg like wondering why we ranked Lidstrom over Pronger?

There is value to health, consistency, and longevity as an elite player.

 

[Canadiens1958]

I don't know, that looks pretty imbalanced to me. 45 of 100 slots occupied by one team, and the other 55 shared by... 11?

So it was nine times more likely that you'd see a cska player in the top 10, than a player from another team, on average.

Some of the numbers that were not provided.Rest may be mined.

Soviet League seasons

1980-89 Soviet League. GF in chronological order From 1980. CSKA 306, 268, 252, 261,286, 221, 211, 230, 224. League leaders every season. Second place team. GF 195, 220, 247, 208, 214, 189, 156, 174, 178, 170. Not aware of any NA league with such scoring disparity by team for a 10 season stretch.

Like the NHL, peak scoring from 1980-1984. 1981-82 TG/G 8.1. Same season NHL 8.03.

Only 24 Oilers taking top 10 NHL slots vs 45 CSKA players in the Soviet League.

Typical, 44 game season, 6 seasons with W/L/T records posted, CSKA suffered only 25 losses.

Rather one-sided league.

Numbers,manually transcribed, calculations in good faith.

 

[ImporterExporter]

... It seems to me that we should probably focus more on the effect the imbalance had on goalies than the effect it had on skaters, since the league was unbalanced BECAUSE there was world-class skaters.

Amen.

I'm stoked to get to Tretiak and I really, really, hope Jiri Holecek comes up in this thing.

 

[Batis]

Some of the numbers that were not provided.Rest may be mined.

Soviet League seasons

1980-89 Soviet League. GF in chronological order From 1980. CSKA 306, 268, 252, 261,286, 221, 211, 230, 224. League leaders every season. Second place team. GF 195, 220, 217, 208, 214, 189, 156, 174, 178, 170. Not aware of any NA league with such scoring disparity by team for a 10 season stretch.

Like the NHL, peak scoring from 1980-1984. 1981-82 TG/G 8.1. Same season NHL 8.03.

Only 24 Oilers taking top 10 NHL slots vs 45 CSKA players in the Soviet League.

Typical, 44 game season, 6 seasons with W/L/T records posted, CSKA suffered only 25 losses.

Rather one-sided league.

Numbers,manually transcribed, calculations in good faith.

Thank you for providing the numbers and saving me some time. It seems like you made a mistake in the 81/82 season though when Spartak Moscow actually scored 247 goals and only was 5 goals behind CSKA in goals scored.

Edit: Although if we count the final round CSKA scored 269 goals and Spartak 258 goals in 81/82.

 

[DannyGallivan]

There is value to health, consistency, and longevity as an elite player

Yeah, if you're looking at "solid career" over "who was the better player". I don't see how health or longevity has anything to do with excellence. Peak shows excellence.